Hello again. Over the last two issues of Think we have positioned your organization. Now it is time to define your audiences. Our second feature is about advertising effectiveness. I think you'll find it interesting. And we have our usual eclectic assortment of briefs.

Let's get started.

Cordially,

Harry Hoover
harry@hoover-ink.com
Ink Briefs
A couple of good marketing books and one piece of fiction are on the Hoover ink list this month. First, the fiction. Friend Cathy Pickens won the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Contest and her book is out in April. Mystery fans will love Southern Fried. My two marketing selections are Anatomy of Buzz and Creating Customer Evangelists.


News clipping services can be costly, so we've discovered a free one for you. It's called Clip & Copy. Here's how it works: sign up to receive summaries based upon criteria you establish, and when you or your clients appear in the more than 300 media covered, you are notified. There is no cost unless you opt to license the content.



The media love tips, tip sheets, quizzes and how-to articles. You can easily generate some for yourself or your clients. When I handled PR for Verbatim Corporation, we developed the 11 Ways To Save Your Data program, and Seven Tips For Organizing With Color. I implemented a successful media relations program that included a consumer offer for a brochure that spelled the tips out in detail. So, use numbers - odd ones like 5, 7 and 11 seem to work best. I don't know why. Develop some fill in the blank statements and start filling them out.



So many books, so little time. Well, I have found the solution. Visit Book-A-Minute for the condensed versions of the classics of literature. Book-A-Minute makes Cliff's Notes look like War and Peace. See the condensed version of Dantes' Inferno and As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. Funny stuff.




About Hoover ink PR

Hoover ink PR helps position businesses that are serious about their success. Then, we craft and deliver bottom line messages that ensure it.

Who are we? We're a marketing communications firm with more than 25 years experience in providing services to financial, high tech, real estate, tourism and consumer products companies.

From employee relations and media relations to collateral material and e-newsletters, we develop the programs and communication tools that will differentiate you from your competitors. And that's the bottom line.
 
  Defining Moment

 Do you know your audience? I mean really know them. I've just been working on a project for a client to help him position his financial planning business and to determine who his key audiences are.

Common traits and common media habits are a couple of the characteristics we uncovered. In this particular case, the audience was high net worth individuals who tend to be conservative, and who are not mainstream media lovers or consumers. When they do consume media, it tends to be conservative talk radio or FOX News. They trust opinions of friends and colleagues, not the media. So, advertising is not the way to reach them.

We will launch a referral program and try to place the client's editorial material in business-oriented media and on local talk radio in his key markets. Also, we are implementing a speaker's bureau to get him in front of civic and professional groups. So, you can see how defining the audience using demographic, geographic and psychographic elements dictates our marketing approach from a tactical perspective.

Your current customers hold the key to geographic, demographic and psychographic attributes of your key audience. Survey them to find out:

  • Why did your clients buy your product?
  • What made them buy?
  • What at that specific time; was it on impulse or planned?
  • What is the benefit of the product?
  • What is their age?
  • Are they newspaper and magazine readers; TV viewers; radio listeners? Which is their most trusted media source?

These are just a few things you'll want to learn about your audiences. If you delve into what makes them tick, it will put your marketing on steroids. And, as Martha Stewart would say, "that's a good thing."

  What's The Frequency?

I came across this list of how advertising frequency equates to advertising effectiveness and found it interesting.

  • The first time a man looks at an advertisement, he does not see it.
  • The second time, he does not notice it.
  • The third time, he is conscious of its existence.
  • The fourth time, he faintly remembers having seen it before.
  • The fifth time, he reads it.
  • The sixth time, he turns up his nose at it.
  • The seventh time, he reads it through and says, "Oh brother!"
  • The eighth time, he says, "Here's that confounded thing again!"
  • The ninth time, he wonders if it amounts to anything.
  • The tenth time, he asks his neighbor if he has tried it.
  • The eleventh time, he wonders how the advertiser makes it pay.
  • The twelfth time, he thinks it must be a good thing.
  • The thirteenth time, he thinks perhaps it might be worth something.
  • The fourteenth time, he remembers wanting such a thing a long time.
  • The fifteenth time, he is tantalized because he cannot afford to buy it.
  • The sixteenth time, he thinks he will buy it some day.
  • The seventeenth time, he makes a memorandum to buy it.
  • The eighteenth time, he swears at his poverty.
  • The nineteenth time, he counts his money carefully.
  • The twentieth time he sees the ad, he buys what it is offering.

Thomas Smith of London wrote this in l885.